Social Memory Studies Research Articles

THE ROLE OF SOCIAL MEMORY IN THE SOCIETAL TRANSFORMATIONS OF MODERN BELARUSIAN SOCIETY: THE THEORETICAL ASPECT

This study employs a socio-philosophical analysis to reveal the role of social memory in the societal transformations of contemporary Belarusian society and highlights the importance of this phenomenon in shaping its socio-cultural development. The theoretical and methodological framework for this research includes societal functionalism, an anthroposocietal approach, the concept of social transformations in post-Soviet societies, and an informational approach to the study of social memory. These approaches enable a detailed exploration of how social memory influences societal transformations in modern Belarus, allowing for an assessment of its normative, value-based, and functional potential in establishing and maintaining a normative order, fostering social stability, and generating tension within the socio-cultural space.

Warstwy czasu i antropocen. Metafory geologiczne w pamięcioznawstwie

The article describes the use of geological metaphors in humanistic and social memory studies. It shows how geological concepts are used in contemporary research and theoretical reflection on memory: what phenomena and processes they describe, how their use in a distant scientific discipline is justified, and how comparisons are made between the meaning of a given term in geology and its meaning in memory studies. The considerations are illustrated with the example of two metaphors: sediments of time and the Anthropocene.

Reawakening Cold War Social Movements Through Memory Work and Archival Performance

Abstract This article examines the ways in which artefacts of Cold War social movements are reassembled in and through the creation of archives in the present. We ask: how have artefacts of past social movements been re-engaged with memory work through intergenerational transmission and performance? Through the analysis of selected examples, including a) ethnographic work on a Pan-African social movement in Senegal, b) archival research of Cuban Cold War graphic design, and c) a decolonial pedagogical project taking place at a UK university, we illustrate the different – and at times overlapping – dimensions of the ‘memory-activism nexus’ they engage (Rigney 2018; 2020). Through a theoretical framework that draws from social movement theory, memory studies and performance theory in relation to archives, we identify and analyse contemporary engagements with past social movements. We argue that through distinct interpretations, (re)assemblages, and framings of artefacts, memory work through the creation of archives is necessarily an embodied and performative practice.

Representation of National Identity on the Net

Introduction. The purpose of the article is to study and construct the typology of situations of the national identity actualization of young people in the digital space. The scientific novelty of the work lies in the study of the constructing national identity process as a result of the assimilation of institutional nation-building, passed through the filters of personal attitudes, that can be observed in the variability of representing national identity ways in various social situations. The relevance is conditioned by modern socio-political conditions and the need for in-depth study of the category of national identity.Methodology and sources. The research methodology is based on the approaches of social constructivism (the nation as an “imaginary community” by B. Anderson), symbolic interactionism (the dramatic approach of I. Goffmann), ethno-symbolism (everyday nationalism of J. Hutchinson) and memory studies (cultural memory of J. Assman). The research method is a discourse analysis of blogs in TikTok and Instagram, the unit of analysis is a blog as a case, sample size made up 127 cases. The collection of empirical data took place from 01.26.2022 to 03.10.2022.Results and discussion. The digital space provides the conditions for the maximum degree of intensity of the national identity representation, which can be represented in social networks by a wide variety of forms (costume, text, music, image, scenery, etc.). The following types of representation of national identity in the network have been identified: national identity as a “profession”, as “fandom”, national identity in the context of constant updating (migrants, intercultural marriage), in the context of everyday life, situational national identity, lack of a specific national identity.Conclusion. The conducted empirical research allows to construct the typology of situations of national identity of young people representations in the network. The typology is based on the degree of intensity of national identity representation. The typology can be represented as a continuum, on one pole of which there is a vivid representation of national identity, on the other - an active blurring and confusion of national markers.

Gazeta Tan – odna iz glavnyh «figur vospominanij» antikommunisticheskoj propagandy v Turcii

This article analyzes the Tan newspaper (1938-1945), and treats its identity, administration, publication policies and approach to the political and social incidents and agenda of the period with a focus on social memory studies.

Social Memory

Abstract This article highlights the significance of social memory in Christian missions. Memory is a crucial phenomenon that shapes how individuals perceive reality and make decisions. Social memory, in particular, can aid anthropological researchers and Christian missionaries in engaging with people groups. The article summarizes the history of social memory studies and explores the effects of social trauma on group memory. It emphasizes the importance of understanding the context of a target people’s past for the success of the Christian mission. By examining a social group’s history, missionaries can gain insights into how the group is likely to respond to the Gospel message and how they are likely to interpret and apply it in their lives. Overall, comprehending the context is essential for the success of the Christian mission.

Humanitarian discourse in a situation of war

The research is aimed at identifying the features of humanitarian discourse of modern times in the critical conditions of war. The author's task is to clarify the dependence of the dominant themes, that this discourse presents, and the dynamics of their changes in Ukraine, in Western democratic countries, and its articulation by the aggressor country. To achieve the task, a set of philosophical and general scientific methods is used: empirical - to collect and describe actual material; phenomenological - for the objectification of humanistic discourse in terms of concepts and phenomena; dialectical - regarding the general understanding of the tendencies of the unfolding of historical processes; analytical - regarding the identification of the causes of complex phenomena of social existence (war, multiculturalism, glocalization, genocide, conflict, patriotism, etc.); contextual - regarding the identification of the historical and cultural context of the existence of the mentioned phenomena; commemorations - regarding the study of social memory and work with traumatic experience, etc. Thus, the Ukrainian humanitarian discourse of wartime is characterized by a growing sense of national/civilizational identity, political subjectivity, and patriotism; for Western democratic discourse – rationalized caution and post-non-classical rhetoric; for the discourse of the aggressor country – ideological and propagandist involvement in the desire to justify the moral deviations and crimes against humanity of the invaders. Despite all the traumatism of the war experience, it must be worked out and understood, because otherwise it will be repeated in new inhumane manifestations and forms.

Communicative remembering: Revisiting a basic mnemonic concept

Abstract The article attempts to clarify what today constitutes communicative remembering. To revisit this basic mnemonic concept, our theoretical contribution starts from available approaches in social memory studies that assume a binary distinction between cultural and communicative modes of memory making. In contrast, we use concepts that treat them not as structural, historically and culturally distinct registers but as a repertoire of retrospection that hinges on the evoked temporal horizon and media usage. To further interrogate this practical articulation of memories, we direct our attention to the habitual, communicatively realised engagement with the past. We finally turn to the ways communicative remembering is done in digitally networked environments, which provide us with a pertinent mnemonic arena where rigid dichotomies of communicative memory versus cultural memory are eroded.

ЭКСПЕДИЦИЯ В НЕМЕЦКИЙ НАЦИОНАЛЬНЫЙ РАЙОН АЛТАЙСКОГО КРАЯ 2023 Г.: ИССЛЕДОВАНИЕ СОЦИАЛЬНОЙ ПАМЯТИ И КОММУНИКАЦИИ СОВЕТСКОЙ ВЛАСТИ И СЕЛЬСКОГО ОБЩЕСТВА В 1950-1980-Е ГГ.

The article discusses the results of the 2023 expedition to the German National District of the Altai Territory. The authors describe the main directions and problems of the study of social memory and communication of the Soviet government and rural society. The potential of using the collected source base is determined and its characteristics are given.

What can Transitional Justice take from Social Memory Studies?

While certainly not for the first time, still, the past two years can be remembered as—right after “the year of Covid-19”—a time during which activists in the West tore down statues and monuments that represent racism, colonialism, ideologies that are no longer legitimate (at least among some), and former leaders who are no longer legitimate (at least among some). In the UK (Bristol), protesters toppled a monument to Edward Colston, a slave trader; in Belgium (Antwerp), the statue of a king who brutalized Congo was burned and then removed; in the United States (Tennessee), a statue of a newspaper editor was toppled; and there were more. Some institutions speeded up or even initiated tearing down such monuments before the public did so as a way to prevent the protests that accompany this act—protests that can taint the reputation and legacy of the institution way after the monument is gone and...

Does transnational contention lead to transnational memory? The online visual memory of the February 2003 anti-Iraq War protests

ABSTRACT In the last weekend of February 2003, between six and ten million people in 60 different countries protested against the imminent Iraq War. Commentators quickly described the worldwide protests as a manifestation of a new form of transnational contention, which would lead to new forms of transnational memory and identity. Building on efforts to connect social movement and memory studies, this article examines if the massive size and transnational nature of the February 2003 anti-war protests resulted in an equally widely shared and transnational form of memory. Following research that describes the crucial role of visual communication for social movements and memory, it approaches this question by studying the size and shape of the online visual memory of the 2003 anti-war protests. Applying the Google Cloud Vision API to retrieve and analyse 1746 online circulations of twenty-five photographs of the 2003 anti-war protests in the period 2003–2019, we find that, compared to other famous images of protest, the online circulation of images of the protests remains limited. This suggests that the massive protests of 2003 did not result in a widely shared and transnational form of memory. Rather than focusing on individual images, this article argues that studying patterns in their online circulation can explain why some movements remain in the public eye, while others quickly disappear from it.

Beyond the can(n)on: what is ‘war through other stuff’?

ABSTRACT The term ‘War Through Other Stuff’ (WTOS) captures the diverse range of themes and experiences that arise when considering the non-military history of conflict. It pertains not only to physical ‘stuff’ but to the tangible and intangible legacies of war. This introduction to the special issue identifies the central tenants of WTOS and illustrates the value of considering the unexpected consequences of militarization: the activity of war and its repercussions in everyday life. We explore the key works that have been essential in the progression of this field, as well as some that have been particularly influential in the formation of this special issue, which draws from many academic fields, including social history, archaeology, memory studies, dress history, material culture and archival studies. We then introduce the articles, which showcase emerging research across various conflicts and tackle subjects as diverse as shoes, souvenir postcards and naming conventions. Overall, the special issue shows that traces of war can be found even in the most unexpected places.

Spor o Belzebula: analýza jedné synoptické tradice v kritické reflexi

The Beelzebul controversy: Analysis of one synoptic tradition in a critical reflection The article offers an analysis of the synoptic tradition of the Beelzebul controversy, which is preserved in two independent versions in Mark and Q. The analysis reflects some recent methodological impulses from orality and (social) memory studies that offer possible corrections of the theoretical assumptions about the synoptic tradition. The article focus-es on the particular meanings of this tradition in the specific literary representations and on the process of reception. Mark and Q offer two forms of textualization of an oral tradition that their authors creatively embedded into their literary productions. Matthew, in turn, combines the content of both of them and places them within his own compositional framework. This process reflects a conservative appreciation of the received tradition as well as the creative freedom of the individual authors to locate the tradition in new literary and narrative contexts. The article concludes with a brief reflection of the possibilities and limitations of exploring the synoptic tradition and studying the historical Jesus.

ТЕНДЕНЦИИ РАЗВИТИЯ СОЦИАЛЬНОЙ ПАМЯТИ В СОВРЕМЕННОМ ИНФОРМАЦИОННОМ ПРОСТРАНСТВЕ РОССИИ

Objective of the study is to show that social memory acts as a specialized tool for communication between human individuals. It records historically stable patterns, stereotypes, standards, algorithms of social experience and collective behavior. The methodological basis of the research compiled the ideas of the classics of sociological thought, the concepts of domestic representatives of modern sociological theory, and the works of scientists engaged in the study of social memory as a three-dimensional socio-cultural education. Research results. The author states the special significance of the socio-cultural activity of the memory of society in a technogenic society, it acquires technical dimensions, merges with industrial and computer technologies. Prospects of the study. The author believes that social memory appears as an information system capable of preserving, rethinking and reproducing information about the past. Artifacts are able to preserve information about the past, besides sign systems, they carry the spiritual schemes of the collective consciousness of their time.

Worlds That Could Not Be: Utopia in Chronicles, Ezra and Nehemiah

Worlds That Could Not Be: Utopia in Chronicles, Ezra and Nehemiah

SOCIOLOGICAL KNOWLEDGE IN THE CONCEPT OF CONFLICT TRANSFORMATION J. P. LEDARACA

The spread of dialogue and conflict transformation practices in modern Ukraine creates a demand for academic, in particular sociological support of such processes. It becomes one of the tools to support relevant projects through sociological reflection of its goals and objectives, implemented practices, activities and consciousness of project participants and its audience. At present, such sociological support exists without a formed methodological basis, one of the areas of creation of which is the study of common principles of building peace and social sciences, in particular sociology. The article considers the use of sociological knowledge in the concept of conflict transformation by J.P. Lederach, in particular, his use of the concepts of identity, power, divided societies, conflict dynamics, social relations, social changes and more.In the perspective of sociological reading, building peace is seen as a process of social change, the signal of which is the need for conflict and confrontation within society, which can not be resolved in the perspective of the state approach, require a systematic vision of existing social relations and constructive intervention, finding opportunities for dialogue.The selection of sociological concepts and practices as components of the concept of peace building by J.P. Lederach contributes to the understanding of it as an interdisciplinary field of research and activity. The presented analysis demonstrates the potential of involving various academic disciplinary approaches in solving building peace tasks. In addition to conflict studies, political science, law, it can also be researched by social and historical memory studies, ethnopsychological and ethnosociological research, regional and cultural research, and so on. The academic field thus reveals its own potential for supporting peace-building processes.

КОНСТРУКЦИИ АВТОРСТВА / СУБЪЕКТНОСТИ В ОПЫТЕ ОТЕЧЕСТВЕННЫХ БИОГРАФИЧЕСКИХ ПРОЕКТОВ ПЕРВОЙ ПОЛОВИНЫ ХХ В.

In the first half of the 20th century a number of projects with a historical and biographical “stuffing” were carried out in our country, from psychologist N. Rybnikov’s activity to establish Biographical Institute up to Gorky’s “History of the Civil War”, “History of Factories and Plants” and the Mintz Commission on the History of the Great Patriotic War. The affiliation of these projects to the first stage of the development of the biographical method, better known from the studies of the Chicago school, is asserted. The article attempts to analyze Russian projects on the subject of authorship / subjectivity constructions arising in them in an interdisciplinary way of the biographical method, as well as using a multiscalar approach to the study of social memory. It has been shown that “mass character” in these constructions has several aspects: a) involvement of the “masses”, b) key to verification and consensus in describing the past through the recollections of many participants, c) performativity. The democratization of biography-writing is considered in the context of the ‘Halbwachs Theorem’. In order for people unaccustomed to producing memories to be included in biographical practices, as well as to ensure the completeness and comparability of information obtained not only for political, but also for research purposes, semi-formalized methods were developed. Nevertheless, with all the declarations that the workers are now writing history, for the most part they were only suppliers of raw material, and the complex constructions of distributed authorship actually acted.

“EVERYTHING WAS POSSIBLE”: EMOTIONS AND PERCEPTIONS OF THE PAST AMONG FORMER PORTUGUESE ANTIFASCIST ACTIVISTS

In this article, I analyze how former activists opposed to Estado Novo, Portugal's fascist regime, see their past, as well as the emotions and perceptions associated with it. I argue that what Antonio Costa Pinto called a “double legacy” shapes these activists' process of remembering. This means that the legacies of dictatorship in Portugal's consolidated democracy are strongly shaped by how it ended and by how democracy was implemented in the country—that is, through a revolution and a radical “cut with the past.” I use semistructured interviews and open questionnaires to study how former activists are affected by and contribute to building this double legacy. By adopting an interactionist perspective and by bridging the scholarship on transition and oral history, this research aims to strengthen the dialogue between social movement and memory studies, and also stresses the relevance of the co-construction of individual and collective memory.

Milieus of memory: Within, across, and between the Mashreq, the Maghreb, and Europe

The thematic of “place” has since the work of Pierre Nora accrued much conceptual currency in social and cultural memory studies. Nora had defined place as lieu, formal remants of a vanishing notion of memory as social practice. Suggesting an alternative notion of place as milieu, the discussion focuses on social memory as proliferations of present-pasts.

How ex-auditors remember their past: The transformation of audit experience into cultural memory

Researchers have examined the socialization of auditors at various stages of their professional development, but they have done little or no work on the continued effects of this socialization after auditors leave the firms. Put simply, they have not explored the ways that ex-auditors remember their past. Drawing on the literature in social memory studies and on 37 semi-structured interviews with ex-auditors who used to be employed at large Canadian accounting firms, we perform memory work to examine how ex-auditors transform their audit experience into cultural memory. The narratives of past audit experience elicited during the interviews reveal that ex-auditors develop a complex contemporary representation of this experience. When they solicited their communicative (individual) memories, our participants remembered multiple conflicts between their self-identity and the normative work environment during their time at the firms. However, when they reflected on the impact of their audit experience on their new careers, an alternative and much more collective version of this past emerged. Cultural memories with an elitist and class work dynamic that maintained and justified claims of professional and social superiority began to predominate. We argue that communicative and cultural memory are connected because it is communicative memory that allows cultural memory to take on social forms and exercise cultural domination. Our study makes three important contributions. First, it broadens the socio-temporal perspective of auditing research by highlighting the continued effects of the professional identity of auditors after they change careers. Second, it shows that representations of the past provide ex-auditors with a powerful means to promote their professional interests and structure power relationships within organizations. Third, it introduces the use of reflexive memory work as a rigorous methodological approach in accounting and organizational research.